By the measure of pure sound, It Is Time for a Love Revolution is a glorious feast of retro-rock pleasures--a feast of empty calories, perhaps, but sometimes fast food is more irresistible than a five-course meal.

There are a few additional moments of greatness, but also a few more tracks on the opposite side--they may make for great background listening, but seem to require altered states to get through while focusing on the music.

There are enough hooks in this bouquet of confusing-if-passable genre-hopping tracks to keep him on the path to future hits, but nothing comes remotely close to the lightning in a bottle of "Old Town Road"'s accidental perfection.

It's a creation that's slicker and sleeker than the debut, but fortunately, it's not quite at the expense of Caillat's simple charms.

The problem with The Road and the Radio is that the songs just aren't very memorable.

Against productions this diluted, Jurassic's top-notch rhymers -- Chali 2na, Soup, Akil -- fail to make any headway, usually spitting rhymes already familiar to listeners of their earlier work.

As a writer she's never been stronger.

Classic and maybe even a little awesome, Sonic Boom makes that "hottest band in the world" tag much easier to swallow.

He sounds comfortable where he is and Lynne presents him in a shining, flattering light.

Welcome to the North finds the Music's ambitious blend of post-grunge and space rock much hungrier and angrier than its predecessor.

Since it's inextricably linked to the eponymous movie -- which generated plenty of controversy and public outcry for its portrayal of a non-verbal autistic woman by Sia's longtime public stand-in, neurotypical dancer Maddie Ziegler -- MUSIC might suffer from that burden of connection, which is a pity because it's actually quite good.

Some other experiments only warrant a B or B+ and the whole jumble might feel odd to a newcomer, but since it is mostly returning fans at this late point in the discography, Head Up High earns its title with only one or two flicks of the skip button.

The album finds them delivering music that feels fresh and inspired; this is what Turin Brakes do, and Invisible Storm shows they continue to do it quite well.

While the album's highlights work on their own, Helium is best approached as a full listening experience, as it feels like a venture into a slightly different world than our own.

The sleek dancefloor track “So Many Girls,” one of a few songs in which Usher sounds dead in the eyes, going through the motions, desensitized by the bounty of women at his feet, is followed by the sarcastically titled “Guilty,” where he whines “I guess I’m guilty for wanting to be up in the club” — which warrants a response like “Yes, attached 31-year-old man, that’s correct.” A few songs before that is a quasi-redemptive ballad “Foolin’ Around”; he humbles himself, seems to take responsibility for his actions, then casually drops “Guess that’s just the man in me, blame it on celebrity.”

Spreading Rumours features a set of supremely catchy songs that walk the line between the Flaming Lips' bubbly psych rock and Smashing Pumpkins' '90s alt crunch.

These brittle, next-wave-of-new-wave productions plow no new ground and barely serve the lyrics to which they're chained.

Not only were there not many musicians hanging in the studio this time, but all of Rise seems stitched together on the computer, with each of the three core members doing their part when they cleared time in their schedule. The result is a drag, the sound of a revelers who have no idea that it's well past time for them to head on home.

Not enough to raise him above "the guy who remixed Elvis" and no great disappointment either.

She retreads just about every move she has made before, even though the crop of new fellow songwriters and producers almost outnumbers the familiar likes of Ester Dean, Pierre Medor, Christopher "Tricky" Stewart, Rodney Jerkins, Jasper Cameron, and Theron Thomas.

Though The Little Red Songbook and Stars Forever would be better introductions to the wonderful world of baroque pop, Folktronic is a must-have for Momus fanatics.

The album doesn't have the detail of character that made Michelle Branch so appealing the first time out.

Human is the sound of an artist painfully trying to sound modern but -- by trying to sound fresh -- sounding older than he ever has.

While this hardly supplants those originals, Spot the Difference is a fun spin for the devoted and a good advertisement for Squeeze's reunion tour, proving they still have the knack to entertain.

There aren't enough songs like "Recollection" and the very poppy "Room 14 (I'm Fine)" to counteract the moments of heaviness, though, and the album ends up being capsized by the sheer heaviness of the majority of the songs.

Uptight types who want him to save hip-hop will hate on this one, but this ain't nuthin' but a party y'all, and a fun one at that.

Panic of Girls rushes forth on a sleek new wave disco pulse that's entirely unconcerned about whether '80s retro is in style this season or not. This is fashionable music existing outside the realm of fashion.

In the case of Nobody's Daughter, the tattered, ragged survivor in the gossip rags is no different than the one on record, both capturing Courtney in an inevitable, not so romantic decline, inadvertently turning every cliché into truth as she slowly slips into her final role as alt-rock's Norma Desmond.